FC2 Sound Delay.

[Nefarious]

These may be 2 different problems, or 2 problems of the same.

I installed ZSNES and MP3 Support for XMMS. I noticed that in both, there's a bit of a sound delay. There is about 3 or 4 seconds between when the sound should start and when it does. Same thing for when it stops. I stop sound in XMMS and it plays for about 3 or 4 seconds then it stops. Same thing with ZSNES, I go into the menu(and the sound should stop) but it goes for a few seconds. I tried xine, and there seems to be no problem, however, I'd prefer to have this fixed, 'cause I like XMMS for MP3s and I enjoy playin' the old SNES Games.

I'm not sure if this happened in FC1, 'cause I never really listened to MP3s in FC1 and I didn't install much of anything in FC1 until I got used to how to work things with Linux.

I have no idea what the problem could be.

For reference, I'm running FC2 on my Laptop and it's running a SiS Sound Chip. The Output(as defined by the Multimedia Systems Selector in the Preferences Menu, I'm using ART Sound Daemon. It's the only one that works.

[Nefarious]

I'm assuming no one's come across this, so it's very possible it's just my laptop. Hopefully I can find a fix if it's not, but if it is, then I'm still confused 'cause in Windows there isn't any delay, but oddly the sound quality is MUCH better in Linux. So atleast something balances it out. :-)

If I figure it out, I'll be sure to post an explaination, and if I get it fixed, I'll go through the steps that work. lol

[mambo]

The ALSA plugin doesn't work? Hm, strange... Over here I can select the ALSA plugin and it eliminates the sound delay.

[Nefarious]

Probably a stupid question, but does FC2 come with ALSA or would I have to install it? Only reason I ask this, is 'cause if it's there I expect it to be installed, but if I remember correctly, in FC1, I used ALSA with no problem. And I only started using ART Sound Daemon in FC2, before that, I never even heard of it.

[mambo]

ALSA comes with FC2. On my pc it was installed automatically. As far as I know it's the official sound system of the 2.6 kernel.

[Nefarious]

Well, I'll try re-installing, or going over the ALSA webpage to try to figure this out, but I'm just hoping I can figure this out before I move to my computer with Linux.

I'll be doin' this in a few hours, so I'll update on what's goin' on. Hopefully if I fix this, I can post a viable solution to help others.

[Bana]

What is the output plugin in XMMS? You should definitely be running alsa, and make sure the settings are configured properly in the output.

[yarjar]

Are you using KDE?

That happened to me when I used KDE... Then I switched to GNOME and it stopped.

[mambo]

Ok, but there's no need to switch from KDE to GNOME just to prevent this sound delay. Just select the ALSA output plugin - if it works... ;-)

[Nefarious]

Alright, this fixes XMMS(had no idea you could select a specific output for XMMS). But there's still the ZSNES, so I'm going to play with ALSA and such later on to try to fix it.

Thanks Bana. :-D

[Nefarious]

Ok... this sorta goes back with the Sound Delay problem, because after I finally got the ALSA plug-in to work(not entirely sure how) but after listenin' to music for a while(varies each time) the ALSA plugin stops workin'.

Luckily, OSSD Plug-in works, so there is no delay, but I don't like the fact that it just stops. Anyone else run into this problem?

Also, I noticed that I can only hear -one- sound at a time. Is there configuration that I'm missing somewhere?

** EDIT: Ok, so for some reason the ARTSD is the only sound system/plugin that works now, and it seems to be going back and forth between being able to work and not being able to work.

I'm unable to try this on my computer as the PSU died on me... and I'm waiting to get a new one. But to rule out my configuration being the problem, as soon as I can I'll be setting it up on my computer that's running an Audigy 2.

[Nefarious]

No one else run into this problem? Or perhaps have a possible solution? Or know of another sound plugin or system I can use?

[jlacroix]

Heck yeah I have that same problem! I get that problem with ZSNES and LTris. For example, when the "Nintendo" logo appears in Mario World, it isn't until the title screen that it actually plays. With LTris, the brick hits the ground, and the sound doesn't play until the next brick is halfway down the screen.

Let me assure you, you can reinstall all you want, but it won't work. For some reason, if you run ZSNES under root it works perfectly, go ahead, try it and see. I know of no fix but this is agitating me badly. I was actually going to start a topic about this but you beat me to it.

[Nefarious]

Actually, it doesn't work while under root. And this is startin' to bug me, 'cause I really enjoy some of those old games a whole lot more than the new ones. It's not something I'm willing to give up. I'd sooner stay with Windows. lol And that explains a lot. :-p

[jlacroix]

Well, there is no sound delay with ZSNES under Gnome, that probably explains why root doesn't have the problem, root is set up for Gnome. However, in Gnome there is a video delay to make up for it, and when I tried to set it to full screen, it crashed Gnome.

Come on, someone here has to know the answer.

[jlacroix]

Try setting the sound system under the KDE control panel to ALSA, (Advanced Linux Sound Archetecture) or something like that and see if it works. If not play around with it and it should work. I think you need to restart after or at least log out. It worked with XMMS should work there as well. Please post your findings, I need to go to bed.

If my idea works all I ask is you look at my KDE stability topic it would mean alot to me to fix that. Goodnight!

[Nefarious]

Well, I found that there's no delay, video or sound, in Gnome... but, I'd prefer using KDE... I just like it for some reason... but if there isn't a fix, I guess I can go back and forth.

Is it possible there's a Gnome program that auto-detects the best sound plugin/system to use and sets it up?

jlacroix: I've been trying to do that, and it will cut out once and a while and just stop working... whether or not I log out then back in or restart. I'm going to go back to KDE and try it out and see if the Gnome setup sticks, or not.

Am I correct when saying, your KDE stability topic is the nVidia problem? If so, after I get my PSU back, I'll be installing Linux on my machine with my GeForce FX 5200, so hopefully I can help ya out. If I'm wrong, would you mind givin' me the link to your topic so I could try to help ya out?

[jlacroix]

Yeah I will look for it the problem may or may not be due to NVidia, Gnome and KDE use the same driver and Gnome doesn't crash, only KDE.

It just randomly crashes, it's annoying.

[RedFedora]

To those of us that experience sound delays when using KDE, I think
I found the work around.

From the KDE menu, select "Preferences->Control Center"
Click on the Search tab and type in the search string "sound".
In the "Keywords" window below, click the option "sound".
Then, in the "Results" window, click on "Sound System".

In the right hand pane, you should see an option block called
"Auto-Suspend". Make sure that the "Auto-suspend if idle" box
IS checked. Then set the delay to some very small value. Such as
1 or 2.

This made all my sound problems go away.

[Nefarious]

Umm... that didn't quite work for me, it sorta sent things crazy and made things worse... lol

Anyways, thanks for the help...

[jlacroix]

That doesn't fix the sound delay. From my knowledge, KDE uses the sound server exclusively, and this just gives up the control faster for other apps to use it, it does fix the problem where the sound server sometimes can't be initialized.

The sound delay is still a problem even when I set it to ALSA.

The freezing is related to my Nvidia driver. I turned off the driver and it doesn't crash, so I guess I can't have hardware acceleration.

Getting hardware acceleration safely with no sound delay would be very nice.

In Gnome, the sound delay is not there, but setting ZSNES to full screen crashes it.

[Nefarious]

What Video Setting do you have to put it to FullScreen...? I find the OG(or OL, not sure which it is) settings are slow and sometimes crash horribly... lol

But, yeah Gnome is better for the Sound Delay problem... 'cause there isn't one... lol

[jlacroix]

I tried setting it to 800*600 OGL. It garbled the screen. I could have sworn I did this before.

I tried everything I could think of in sound system options, there has to be a setting somewhere...

[Nefarious]

I set it for the really low settings... the something like 523*350 or something like that... There's soemthing possibly wrong with ZSNES and OpenGL...

Have ya tried that yet?

**EDIT: I do that, 'cause I've used it in DOS and Win2k and it looks better(in my opinion) at the lower resolutions.

[jlacroix]

I can't try it at all, my Nvidia driver is disabled, nothing works now when it comes to games. If I enable it, my system may crash.

[Nefarious]

Ah, for some reason, that never crossed my mind... lol

On my Laptop, I'm using a simple little shared memory SiS 650 Chip... so, it's possible that that's what is killing my OpenGL rendering... But hey, it works wonders with everything else... :-D

[jlacroix]

I fixed the sound delay in ZSNES. I set the sound system to ALSA and then reinstalled (rpm -ivh --force) the ZSNES rpm. There is no sound delay but the sound is crappy.

However, I cannot get OGL support. Does anyone know how?!

[Nefarious]

So, I'm guessing that when it's installed, it simply took the current setup for the Audio(being the crappy ART Sound Daemon)... Ok, if this works, you're a genius. :-D

[robatino]

I found that if you delete the mcop-(username) directory in /tmp, that fixes the problem, at least temporarily. (The directory is recreated when you play sound again.) So it may have something to do with the arts package.

[crackers]

I've been getting absolutely horrible latency problems with arts, so I just switched it off. No KDE-based sounds, but I don't use 'em anyway. XMMS->Alsa works just fine for me (FC2) and UT2004, as well.